When the Auburn football team's defense heads into the huddle, the players probably don't talk sociology. But seven defensive players on Auburn's 2003 football roster are majoring in that field. Overall, 10 of the 38 Tigers football players whose majors appear in the team's media guide are in sociology.

That ratio — nearly one in four — makes football players far likelier than other Auburn students to major in sociology. Only 62 of the university's 19,000-plus undergraduates chose that field in 2002.

Officials at Auburn attribute the concentration of football players in sociology to the major's flexibility and job prospects. They note that the sociology major allows students to take many elective courses and fewer required courses, which is attractive given athletes' busy practice and competitive schedules. (Related item: Academic support hits new heights)

And because a lot of football players come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, they often are drawn to academic fields that will result in jobs after college, says Virgil Starks, the Auburn assistant provost who oversees academic support for athletes. "In sociology, they can literally see a career path outside that major," he says.

Mayo Sowell, an Auburn junior linebacker, says he didn't think much about career prospects when he decided to major in sociology in the summer before his sophomore year. He told his academic adviser in the athletics department that he got along well with people and liked being around kids and asked what academic field that might point him to. When the adviser suggested sociology, Sowell says, "I asked him, 'Is it hard to graduate in?' I'm capable of doing the work, but I wasn't always the smartest student in high school."

Sowell also says he talked with older teammates who "were kind of similar to me because they weren't really concentrating on school too much," to find out what they were majoring in. "A couple of them were getting their degrees in sociology, so that helped my decision."

Majors as havens for athletes

The clustering of athletes in a given major, which is common on many campuses, concerns some observers of college sports. They fear athletes might sometimes be drawn to an academic program less because of its academic attractiveness than because it is easy or overly friendly to athletes. Sometimes athletes just follow as their teammates guide them on such a path; other times they might be nudged in that direction more formally by advisers in the athletics department.

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"Every school in the country has a hideaway curriculum, a secret underground tunnel, for athletes," says William Dowling, a professor of English at Rutgers. Dowling also is a leader of the Drake Group, a faculty watchdog group that has called for colleges to disclose information each year about the majors taken by their athletes and the average aggregate grades of students enrolled in those majors.

Critics such as Dowling suspect that if newly adopted NCAA academic rules work as some observers expect, such clustering might become more common.

Under the new rules, colleges could face financial and other consequences if their athletes don't make demonstrable progress toward a particular degree each term by the start of their third year in college and meet escalating minimum grade-point averages based on their colleges' graduation requirements.

That pressure, some observers fear, will force athletes to choose majors earlier and might encourage advisers who work with athletes to push them into easier majors that have been identified as havens for athletes.

"Many student-athletes will choose the path of least resistance — less competitive majors — so they can maintain their eligibility," says Gerald Gurney, associate athletics director for academic affairs at the University of Oklahoma. "Does every school have them? No. Do many schools have them? Yes."

Gurney notes that in 1989, amid a scandal involving Oklahoma's football team, the faculty there shut down four majors — recreation, physical education, law enforcement and general studies — after a review suggested they existed, in part, to provide a painless path for athletes.

Quite a few nationally ranked football programs appear to have clusters of players in a given major, as disclosed in January by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Eleven of the 50 Michigan players whose majors appear in the team's 2003 media guide are in sports management, as are 11 of the 33 at North Carolina State. Ten of the 54 players at Virginia Tech whose majors are listed as a field other than university studies, a catchall for underclassmen, are in residential property management.

The phenomenon isn't limited to football factories. Based on information in 2003 team media guides, at Duke, nearly one in three of the football players who have declared a major have chosen sociology. At Wake Forest, 23 of 52 players were specializing, or planning to specialize, in communication. At Harvard, 35 of the 75 football players listed as having chosen a "concentration," as majors are called there, have selected economics.

Harvard athletics director Bob Scalise attributes the predominance of football players in one field of study to the "increase in current students' interest in careers in business." University statistics bear him out to some extent: 666 Harvard undergraduates, 13% of the total, have chosen economics as their concentration. But why are football players so much more heavily represented in that field? "Athletes," Scalise says, "see this as a viable career after Harvard — one which values intellect, interpersonal skills, leadership, and teamwork — all of which are developed on teams."

Monitoring majors

Some college officials bristle at the suggestion that a large number of athletes in a major implies something nefarious.

Twenty-nine of the 66 Southern Mississippi football players whose majors appear in this season's media guide are in sport administration (four of the 29 were listed as pursuing double majors). Dennis R. Phillips, the faculty athletics representative and graduate coordinator of the sport administration program, notes Southern Miss has one of the nation's oldest and best coaching education programs, and the sports industry is booming with possible jobs.

He also says his program has built a good relationship with the athletics department, and the program has crafted its schedule to avoid late-afternoon classes to prevent conflicts with athletes' practices or games.

Demetrius H. Marlowe, assistant to the vice president for student affairs at Michigan State and president of the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletes, says there is no shame in acknowledging "there are programs that because of the content or rigor of the program or the time the courses are given are better for some athletes."

When is a cluster of athletes in a major a problem and who decides? Several sports officials and faculty leaders say colleges should monitor their athletes' academic choices and, if they see patterns, check them out.

"If you've got 40 athletes in the same program and not very many other people in that program, that ought to be investigated," says Andy Geiger, athletics director at Ohio State. He suggests the NCAA develop a system for reporting which majors athletes choose and why.

Such oversight will be especially important as the new NCAA rules take effect, says David Goldfield, a history professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte who has helped the NCAA develop the new academic standards.

"We've got to be vigilant and monitor these types of clusters," he says, "or else we may increase graduate rates but have done very little to educate the student-athletes."

Major clusters

Players at some NCAA Division I schools are more likely than other students at their schools to major in certain disciplines.

School

Major

Number and percentage of football players in major

Number and percentage of all undergraduates in major

Auburn

Sociology

10 of 38 (26.3%)

62 of 19,603 (0.3%)*

Duke

Sociology

14 of 43 (32.6%)

123 of 3,821 (3.2%)

Harvard

Economics

35 of 75 (46.7%)

666 of 5,019 (13.3%)*

N.C. State

Sports management

11 of 33 (33.3%)

176 of 22,971 (0.8%)

Michigan

Sports management

11 of 50 (22%)

248 of 24,517 (1%)

Southern Mississippi

Sport administration

29 of 66 (43.9%)

843 of 14,058 (6%)

Virginia Tech

Residential property management

10 of 54 (18.5%)

75 of 19,218 (0.4%)

Wake Forest

Communication

23 of 52 (44.2%)

241 of 2,000 (12.1%)

*For 2002-03 academic year.Note: Numbers based on athletes and students who have chosen a major.